Taking it Slow

Whenever my former partner used to stay overnight, I would marvel at the speed with which she was able to get ready for work, managing to be out of the house barely 45 minutes after getting up. I would normally hear her door open when I was in the midst of my prayer time, having striven not to wake her up any earlier. 

I take a bit longer. At Swanvale Halt church we say Morning Prayer at the civilised hour of 9am, but I am usually up by 5.50 and usually out of the house just under three hours later. This time includes some Bible reading, half an hour's prayer or a bit more if I have been economical in my use of time, diary-writing and household chores. Such a generous degree of slack eases me into the day very, very gently.

The days themselves have been quite busy lately with a lot to prepare for - three funerals in a week (that hasn't happened since I was a curate), the usual services plus a school assembly, Messy Church, two sessions at the Air Cadets, meetings, and two masses for Ash Wednesday today. Yesterday I woke up with an appalling sense of dread and reluctance to move at all, and it took my spiritual exercises to erode that somewhat. I wondered whether this was due to tiredness, in which case, perhaps, it might be sensible to cut down on that generous morning time and spend longer asleep. In fact, it seems to have been down more to a couple of unusual things I had taken on and not done before, and once they were out of the way I felt much better, so there doesn't seem to be any need to change the way I manage the day (at least not at that end of it).

I have the barely-imaginable luxury of managing my own time with nobody telling me what to do, and have nothing but admiration for the ways people cope when they don't. But I needed the space yesterday in order to function properly, which is another indication that I shouldn't attempt to do anything more high-powered, and why I should retain it.